Rene G. Cepeda

CV and Publications

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6306-7550

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Postdoctoral Researcher, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
2024–2026

  • Pursue independent research on performance in virtual worlds, interrogating tensions between unembodied digital presence and embodied traditions of physical performance
  • Conduct collaborative research on artistic concealment in digital environments, developing typologies of hiddenness and classifying internet-based artworks
  • Contribute to 3D visualizations and digital reconstructions of archaeological objects, including workflows for 3D printing
  • Maintain the research group’s website and internal MediaWiki infrastructure

Producer & Co-Host, Header/Footer Presents, New Media Caucus
2022–Present

  • Co-produce a monthly podcast highlighting BIPOC artists and developments in new media art
  • Lead guest coordination, research, audio editing, and platform management

Curator & Board Member, New Media Caucus
2022–Present

  • Serve as lead curator for Header/Footer, developing exhibitions and public outreach programs
  • Oversee the creation of collection policies, a code of ethics, and a new archival/documentation system
  • Coordinate cross-functional teams for exhibitions and podcast production

Lecturer, Art Department, UNARTE, Mexico
2020–2023

  • Taught undergraduate courses in new media art and contemporary art practices (online and in-person)
  • Supervised BA dissertations and mentored students pursuing careers in the arts

Lecturer, Design & Art History, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Mexico
2015–2018

  • Delivered large undergraduate courses in photography, new media, art history, and museum studies
  • Advised bachelor-level dissertations and contributed to curriculum development

Public Programmes Intern, TATE Liverpool / Liverpool Biennial
2014

  • Coordinated small-scale public events, liaising with artists and suppliers, managing logistics, and supporting on-site execution
  • Received commendations from both participants and internal stakeholders

Collections & Curation Intern, Museum of East Anglian Life
2010–2011

  • Updated the object catalogue for digital migration into The Museum System (TMS), including location tracking, loans, and condition reports
  • Supported redisplay projects and outreach initiatives as a photographer
  • Assited in public events, photographing the festivities and providing logistics support where needed

Curator’s Assistant, Hubert Duprat: Caddis Crystal Company, Norwich Castle Museum
2011

  • Managed loan logistics, procured materials for commissioned works, and cared for live animals used in the exhibition
  • Assisted with exhibition installation and object care

Cultural Consultant, Day of the Dead Celebrations, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
2010

  • Designed and facilitated a culturally sensitive public program on Día de los Muertos
  • Trained staff and developed interpretive materials for the event

EDUCATION

Ph.D. Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art  University of Sunderland, UK Supervisor: Prof. Beryl Graham Dissertation: Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art: Making a Manual

  • Result of a three-year international research project surveying curatorial methodologies across Europe and the Americas
  • Developed a practical manual for non-specialist museum professionals curating interactive new media art

M.A. Art History and Curating  Liverpool Hope University, UK

  • Focus areas: Modern and Contemporary Art History, Art Historical Methodologies, Curatorial Practice, Collections Management, Public Engagement, Audience Development

M.A. Museum Studies  University of East Anglia, UK

  • Focus areas: Museums in the Digital Era, Decolonizing the Museum, Politics of Collecting, Museum History, Heritage Management, Artefact Restitution

B.A. Information Design  Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Mexico

  • Major in Information Design, Minor in Photography

GUEST LECTURES

  • Cepeda, R. G. (2024, November 13). Redefining Performance Spaces for Virtual Worlds: Exploring Games and Beyond[Online talk]. Palácio das Belas Artes Lisboa, Digital Spatialities Programme, Portugal (Invited)
  • Cepeda, R. G. (2024, October 25). Endless Instants: The Digital Now as a Buffering Circle [Panel presentation]. Media Theater, ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
  • Cepeda, R. G. (2024, February 22–23). Panel Moderator, Manifest:io  Berlin (Invited)
  • Cepeda, R. G. (2023 February 21). Visiting Lecture. Wofford College, Department of Art & Art History. Sponsored by the Center for Innovative Learning, USA (Invited)
  • Cepeda, R. G. (2023 November 22-24). 8th Festival United for the Arts. Escuela de Arte de Tlaxcala, Mexico (Invited)
  • Cepeda, R. G. (2022, September 30 – October 2). Panel Moderator, Future Bodies Symposium. New Media Caucus, online and hybrid sessions (Invited)
  • Cepeda, R. G. (2021, August 12). Technical Workshop 1: Strategies, Project Workflow, and Efficient Design for Virtual Exhibitions [Online workshop]. Museum Learning Hub, Virtual Exhibitions | Module 5 (Invited)
  • Munro, J., Theriault, S., Culbert, C. and G. Cepeda, R. (2020) ‘New Horizons: A Critical Examination of Animal Crossing for Cultural Heritage Institutions’, in. MCN 2020 Virtual, New York. (Invited)

FUNDING & AWARDS

  • LSA 2024 Best Paper Award, Highly Commended (Runner-up), for the paper “The Spectre of tourism: Power, culture, and the Día de Muertos parade in Mexico City”, co-authored with Bailey Adie
  • Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS), Top-Ranked Abstract — Selected by peer review as one of the six highest-rated PhD abstracts for the 2020–2021 review year. Published in Leonardo Journal, Volume 54, Issue 6 (December 2021), MIT Press
  • 17th Biennial Symposium for Arts and Technology Curatorial Residency hosted by the Ammerman Center
  • CIFO-Ars Electronica Award 2022 Nominee
  • Code Switch: Associate Research Consultant Training Scholarship Recipient,— Awarded full scholarship to participate in the program led by Helen Parra (2021)
  • Partial Scholarship Liverpool Hope (2013)

SERVICE TO PROFESSION

Editorial Roles

  • Peer Reviewer, Leonardo, MIT Press (2023–present)
  • Co-Editor, Game Arts Curators Kit (2021) 

Professional Service

  • College Art Association member (2023-present)
  • Board Member & Curator, New Media Caucus (2021–present) 
  • Mentor, Undergraduate and Emerging Artists, UNARTE and Header/Footer Gallery (2020–present)
  • Panel Moderator, Future Bodies Symposium, New Media Caucus (2022)
  • Panel Moderator, Manifest.io  Berlin (2024)
  • Workshop Moderator, When Museums Meet Videogames, Villa Albertine / We Are Museums / Smithsonian (2021)
  • Workshop Moderator, GAIA 2021, Ontario Arts Council (2021)

Curatorial Oversight

  • Oversaw exhibition approvals and programming for Header/Footer Gallery during tenure as Board Member and Curator, New Media Caucus (2023-Present)
  • Supported artist-led proposals and ensured alignment with gallery’s mission and ethical standards
  • Selected guest curators and developed aditional activities for the gallery

EXHIBITIONS (CURATED & ASSISTED)

  • Upcoming Sound Art Exhibition — Online Exhibition (tbd)
  • Judson-Morrissey & Vagner Mendonça-Whitehead Award Exhibition — Online Exhibition (2024) 
  • My Internet, New Media Caucus Awards 2025 Exhibition — Online Exhibition (2025) 
  • Judson-Morrissey & Vagner Mendonça-Whitehead Award Exhibition — Online Exhibition (2024) 
  • Coded Meditations, featuring Jason Ting — Online Exhibition (2024)
  • New Rules, group exhibition featuring KT Duffy, Sue Huang, Chelsea Thompto, Rashin Fahandej, and Shawné Michaelain Holloway — Online Exhibition (2024)
  • Judson-Morrissey & Vagner Mendonça-Whitehead Award Exhibition — Online Exhibition (2023) 
  • TextFields, Header/Footer Gallery, New Media Caucus — Online Exhibition (2023) 
  • Rizoma: Panoramas Alternos, Córdoba Lab — Oaxaca City, Mexico (2023) 
  • Metaphoto — Online Exhibition (2023, co-curated) 
  • Una Era de Fractura — Online Exhibition (2022, co-curated) 
  • identidad.exe — Online Exhibition (2022)
  • Poppy.Museum — Independent Unpublished Exhibition (2022) 
  • Contact, Ammerman Center Symposium on Arts & Technology, Connecticut College — USA (2022) 
  • Momentos y Memorias Fragmentadas, Universidad de las Américas Puebla — Mexico (2015)
  • Art of Faith: Spirit, Self, Surroundings, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts — UK (2011, co-curated) 
  • Hubert Duprat: Caddis Crystal Company, Norwich Castle Museum — UK (2011, curatorial assistant)

ADDITIONAL TRAINING

  • Code Switch: Associate Research Consultant Training — Instructor: Helen Parra (2021)
  • Curating New Media Art: Process, Interaction, Virtuality, Node Center for Curatorial Studies — Instructor: Pau Waelder (2019)
  • Curating Art After New Media, University of Sunderland — Professional Development Course, Instructor: Beryl Graham (2017) 
  • History and Heritage Museum Curation, Museo Interactivo de Economía — Instructor: Alma Montero (2012)

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

Curatorial & Research 

• Curation • Exhibition Design • Collections Management • Archival Systems & Policy Development • Documentation & Citation Standards • Research • Academic Writing • Translation (English ↔ Spanish)

Teaching & Communication 

• Higher Education Lecturing • Public Speaking • Presentation Skills • Blog Writing • Podcast Production

Technical & Project Skills 

• Photography • Project Management

LANGUAGES

  • Spanish — Native
  • English — Fluent
  • German — Intermediate (approx. B1 level)
  • Italian — Basic
  • French — Basic

PUBLICATIONS

Edited Volumes

  • Interactive Media, commissioned contribution for Practices, Sites and Controversies section in The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Visual Culture, edited by Barry Sandywell and Martin Hand — Bloomsbury Visual Arts (forthcoming)
  • Cepeda, R. G., & Salazar, C. (in press). Technonecromancy: Preserving the poetics. In M. Swalwell & H. Stuckey (Eds.), Born digital artefacts from the 1980s and 1990s: Sources, methods, challenges (working title). MIT Press
  • G. Cepeda, Rene, Chaz Evans, Marìa Luján Oulton, Tim Kwasny, and Tiffany Funk, eds. Video Game Art Reader: Volume 5 – Game Arts Curators Kit. Vol. 5. Chicago: Amherst College Press, 2024. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.14371652
  • G. Cepeda, Rene, and Chaz Evans, eds. Game Arts Curators Kit. Self-published, 2021

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

  • Salazar, C., & Cepeda, R. G. (in review). Voidopolis: Resisting the walled garden. International Journal for Digital Art History
  • Cepeda, R. G. (in review). From flesh to code: Rethinking performance in digital space. Digital Creativity
  • Cepeda, R. G. (in review). Redefining performance spaces for a virtual world. Leonardo
  • G. Cepeda, Rene, and Salazar Constanza. “Header/Footer Gallery: Creating and Sustaining an Online-Only Art Gallery.” Edited by Karin DeWild. Internet Histories, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2023.2249363
  • G. Cepeda, René. 2023. “Making a Manual: The Manual for the Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art”. In: Pau Alsina & Andrés Burbano (coords.). “Possibles”. Artnodes, no. 31. UOC. https://doi.org/10.7238/artnodes.v0i31.405252
  • G. Cepeda, Rene. “Rescuing New Media Art from Technological Obsolescence.” DAT Journal 4, no. 3 (December 6, 2019): 37–46. https://doi.org/10.29147/dat.v4i3.145
  • G. Cepeda, Rene. “Reconciling Art History and Video Games.” Journal of Media Arts and Practice, vol. 1, 2015, pp. 6–13

Book Chapters & Conference Proceedings

  • Adie, B. A., & Cepeda, R. G. (in press). If they come, we must build it: Popular culture, tradition and the Hollywoodization of Día de Muertos in Mexico City. In B. Wyatt, H. Stewart, J. Kennell, & P. Stone (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Dark Events: Celebrations, Heritage, and Customs of Death and the Macabre. Routledge
  • G. Cepeda, Rene, and Chaz Evans. “To Craft a Game Arts Curators Kit: A Collective Record of How to Publicly Exhibit Video Games Around the Globe.” In Playful Materialities: The Stuff That Games Are Made Of, edited by Benjamin Beil, Gundolf S. Freyermuth, Hanns Christian Schmidt, and Raven Rusch. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839462003
  • G. Cepeda, Rene. “Making a Manual: The Manual for the Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art.” In ISEA2022 Barcelona Proceedings: POSSIBLES – 27th International Symposium on Electronic Art, edited by Pau Alsina, Irma Vilà, Susanna Tesconi, Joan Soler-Adillon, and Enric Mor. Barcelona, June 2022. https://openaccess.uoc.edu/handle/10609/147563
  • Adie, Bailey Ashton, and Rene G. Cepeda. “Film Tourism and Cultural Performance: Mexico City’s Day of the Dead Parade.” Workshop Proceedings, 2018, p. 33

Digital Publications

Theses & Dissertation

  • G. Cepeda, Rene. The Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art: Making a Manual. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Art and Design, University of Sunderland, 24 November 2020. Supervisors: Prof. Beryl Graham and Dr. Alexandra Moschovi. Full text available via ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346401579
  • G. Cepeda, Rene. The Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art: Making a Manual. Ph.D. thesis, University of Sunderland, 2020
  • G. Cepeda, Rene. Towards the Meta Museum. M.A. thesis, University of East Anglia, 2011

Conference Presentations

  • Cepeda, R. G. (2025, November). Del cuerpo al código: Repensar la performance en la era digital. Paper to be presented at the 1st CoMDiF International Congress, Aranjuez, Spain
  • Cepeda, R. G., & Salazar, C. (Chairs). (2025, February 12). Walled Gardens and Wild Artists [Panel session]. College Art Association Annual Conference, New York Hilton Midtown, NY
  • Salazar, C., & Cepeda, R. G. (2024, February). Technological imaginaries: Imagined futures, utopian visions, and fabulations of alternative worlds. Paper presented at the College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL
  • Cepeda, R. G., & Salazar, C. (2023). Technonecromancy: The afterlives of new media art. Paper presented at Born Digital Cultural Heritage Now (BDCH23)
  • Contact, in The 17th Ammerman Center Biennial Symposium on Arts & Technology, Connecticut College, 2022
  • When Museums Meet Videogames Workshops, presented by the Villa Albertine and The Cultural Services of the French Embassy In the U.S., organized by We Are Museums, in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution: Workshops 1–3, Workshop moderator, Oct–Nov 2021
  • GAIA 2021, presented in collaboration with Ontario Arts Council Conseil Des Arts De L’ontario, Workshop moderator for the creation of the Game Arts Curators Kit, March–May 2021
  • Munro, J., Theriault, S., Culbert, C., and G. Cepeda, R. (2020) ‘New Horizons: A Critical Examination of Animal Crossing for Cultural Heritage Institutions’, in MCN 2020 Virtual. New York
  • Graham, Beryl and Sarah Cook (moderators) with guests Rene Cepeda, Jo Joelson, Amanda MacDonald Crowley, Suzy O’Hara, Dominic Smith, Georgia Smithson, Kevin Walker (2019) “CRUMB Radio Hour.” Unfinished List radio streams, a project by Shu Lea Chang for Ars Electronica. 8th Sep. Vienna: Live stream, archived at: http://stwst48x5.stwst.at/en/unfinished_list

REFERENCES

Beryl Graham

Professor of New Media Art

Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries

+44 0191 515 2896

beryl.graham@sunderland.ac.uk

David Puttnam Media Centre

Monkwearmouth, Sunderland 

SR6 0DD, UK

Alexandra Moschovi

Reader in the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries

Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries

+44 0191 515 3465

alexandra.moschovi@sunderland.ac.uk

Northern Centre of Photography

Chester Rd, Sunderland 

SR1 3SD, United Kingdom

Helen Starr

Afro-Carib Cultural Activist, Curator and Producer

helen@helenstarr.net

Tony Buttler

Executive Director

Derby Museums Trust

tonyb@derbymuseums.org

The Strand, 

Derby, Derbyshire 

DE1 6BS, GB

Lisa Harris

Curator

Museum of East Anglian Life

enquires@eastanglianlife.org.uk

Iliffe Way, Stowmarket 

IP14 1SL, United Kingdom